8/10/2010 2:45:02 PM
Kimberly
Posts: 3
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Hi guys! Decided to send some feedback about playing the original Oathbound campaign setting. The table run by our DM had been using Oathbound as a campaign supplement for some time before actually deciding to run it on its own. It was first offered to us so we could play alternate species but in no time flat we were suddenly playing with a Ceptu wizard (aptly nicknamed "Squishy" because of his lack of HPs and also from "Finding Nemo"), a Domestic Frey rogue (watch your wallet and your HP, he crits on a 17-20!) and a Thorn Druid/Tender of Worlds (teleport & plane shift for druids; it was AWESOME; apparently, "Plane Shift" can be used balefully  ). So when our current campaign finished, we decided to actually run Oathbound instead of just stealing from it. Best idea EVER! We have a 6-person party so some things had to be adjusted, however, we tend to feel that anything less would lead to a faster TPKO in this system (when someone's missing from our sessions, characters die). Not because you need extra damage (although that is a bonus) but more because everyone has certain things they do REALLY well and having 6 people lets us be a little more diverse. If one person doesn't have the needed ability, chances are someone else does. My job in the party is to tank and draw aggro. At first, our DM wasn't going to allow Wild Frey because this is a heavy RP system (which is fine w/us) and it's hard to RP a feral species when about the first month of game-time will be spent in a giant city. The challenge was made however, that if I could come up w/a good back story, I would be allowed because I work at an animal shelter and see feral cats all the time. So, I took my character from the half-assed backstory I made for the Thorn and it worked. My Wild Frey, Feral Warrior/Wild Runner (a v3.5 class that was modified to not be just for elves) was in the urban world for revenge for the burning of the Thorn's grove (and killing of family) and while tracking down the Blighter (not just slang, it's an anti-druid class) responsible. Mitt (NEVER "Mittens") was supposed to be pulled into Wildwood, but Queen Israfel thought it'd be fun to put her in Penance and see what happened. My character was extremely hissy during that time and was NOT allowed to speak when we had to do time at the information booth we had to man as Seeds. We had a bard that was given up to a monster looking for a meal on the Queen's Green (he was on the ground bleeding and stabilized the second we left him for dead) so the rest of the party could escape (the exact wording was "Take our bard, please!"). Our Valkyrie Spirit-Shaman (she did some NASTY things to the ghosts of the Undercity  ) became our party-leader and is now a Razer for Flolo (spelling?) in charge of relations between him and other Bloodlords. It's a little scary when she starts talking, but still preferable to letting the anti-social cat talk. Our sneaky-type is a Picker Operative that enjoys sneaking up on people (we've all finished a good part of our Focus evolutions and mutations). Our spellcasters fluctuate (to both poor decision-making and for story purposes) but we've seen Ologatu, Knuk and Valco played. On an interesting note, we lost our Valkyrie recently and reincarnated her in a Faerie Ring so the DM, for the heck of it, put a race on the reincarnate table that maybe he shouldn't have. She rolled it and now he's had to make some stuff up since a racial stat block doesn't exist for what was rolled. She really does like getting new evolutions by drinking someone's blood, though and it fits her character, although I'm a little disappointed that she's not a high enough level yet to get a face-saw (that's right, you heard me). We really like getting extra Exp. for completing quest-related goals. For example, one of our first bonuses came from a group kids wielding trick-wands but much to our surprise, when we confronted their leader, the first thing he did was fire his REAL wand at the feral cat who promptly responded by beating him down to one HP in one swing (I rolled low damage). When Exp. was totaled at the end of the night, we got a bonus for not killing any of the kids (barely). We especially like it because when we have a session that's heavy on roleplaying, sometimes we get more Exp. for story bonuses than we get for running the story. We also like Lord Bellas (spelling?). He is a Bloodlord of Penance who, we are convinced, plays at being crazy in order to make people underestimate him. We have no proof of this, but one doesn't hold onto a Bloodhold without knowing a bit about what you're doing. We love paying him in pineapple, swimming in Jello, throwing meat at statues and our favorite is when our nerdy, book-worm character (the Knuk) got more action with Bellas' niece than the bard did with the rest of the castle. A trip to Bellas is always going to come out weird. We've also spent some time in Illium (spelling?) and even met the guy from the cover of the "Plains of Penance" book. Yeah, he's scary. We were lucky he needed us to get something from a Frey temple (rival temple to my character, so there was no conflict of interest for Mitt) so he didn't immediately maul us with +40 attacks. The story we got sucked into after that involves us looking for artifact pages so we've also been to Arena and are now in the Wildwood/Anvil area. Arena was good if you didn't have to do mass-combat. Eventually, we figured out a way to make it work, but one mass-combat takes an entire 4-6hr session because turns are so long. We had some fun with the God-dust in that area, too. Some characters didn't mind the random effects (Mitt grew to the size Large and it was such an improvement in AC and damage dealt that our DM ruled that some items didn't re-size with her in order for it to be a bane like it should have been), some characters came out just plain weird, (the Knuk liked to flash people his tentacles because he was obsessed with getting more arms and this was close) and some characters came out totally screwed (the Valkyrie ended up needing to eat magic but then rolled that she was allergic to it as well and she also rolled that some of her magic items might not work every day; long story short it was a -2 to life constantly and a daily chance that a magic item may stop working causing an artifact to explode from her). It got even more interesting when we realized there's an addiction and suddenly the squishy spellcasters are attempting to fight the cat that does 4d6+6 damage in a single attack for more (and the cat at that point had no qualms about killing other party members if they were stupid, like when the mage said, "I cast lightning bolt."
"What?! Dude! We're underwater!"
"There's no rules saying I can't!"
"'Cuz they didn't think anyone would be that dumb!"
(We had to go back to v.2.0 to find the rule that says it acts like a fireball but w/electricity), or if they were human (guess what race the Blighter was), or if they had the bag of God-dust and she suddenly felt a craving.). We still have this issue, but luckily most of us are good at making the save and the one that wasn't, was quickly cured by death. Wildwood was interesting in its own way and we discovered that druids (or the DMs running them) can be really MEAN when they want to be. NEVER anger a druid if you can avoid it, otherwise you'll get teleported into a sun. Wildwood was nice for my character because I suddenly got to use that Survival skill I'd been carefully keeping up on but never using. Our party also managed to kill my character's arch-enemy so now we have to focus on our former-Valkyrie's new arch-enemy, Nezbit the goblin. He's slippery as all get-out, he has our artifacts and he took the former-Valkyrie's really expensive ring and ran out with it. We're currently running around Lasamichu (spelling?) and what we're doing suddenly gave us a look at the future of the overall plot and we're a little worried about what we've seen. Feathered Fowl should not just keel over and die by being tapped. We did a couple of things to adjust gameplay for the PCs. When it came to Exp. to pay for a Focus' evolution or mutation, we used something other than regular Exp. We vote at the end of each session for the people that best fit 6 categories (Brilliant Idea, Combat & Tactics, Roleplaying, Survivior, Teamwork and a bad luck/stupid-thing-done award that we named after the character who refused healing, then died by that many HPs, Lucius Memorial. The Exp. rewards from voting go toward our Focus, or we can use regular Exp. but we can't go below the requirement for our last level. This way, the people contributing the most to sessions get rewarded for it and can get benefits for their character from it. We also added as a boss, a chronomancer who specializes in time spells. The room started with gates that showed an event in our past (for whoever was looking at it) but if we jumped through the gate, we were kicked back out and stunned for interfering with our past. Interference also usually then explained a vague point of our backstory, reinforcing it. Then, the chronomancer started whipping "Time Stop" spells at us and also used a spell that steals your action on your turn and makes it his. It was an evil challenge, but we loved it. The best thing about Oathbound, we feel is probably how creative it allows you to be. You get pulled in, so you don't necessarily have to be an Oathbound class or race, or you can mix a prestige class with your current one, or you can take a Focus. There's a million things you can do and characters will never feel like they've been cookie-cuttered. If anyone has any further questions regarding characters we play or how we're running something campaign-wise, feel free to ask. We love to brag about our characters and what we're doing. If anyone is considering starting Eclipse, I definitely recommend running it from the first Oathbound book and working it in to the story. It'd be a shame to miss all that fun!
edited by Mitt on 8/10/2010
edited by Mitt on 8/10/2010
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"You're the new party member so you get to wake the wild cat. I recommend lots of loud noise & fast movements."
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